


A Simple Excuse for a Complex Crime

by shinelikethunder (tenlittlebullets)



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Blood, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Electrocution, HYDRA PARTY FAVOR TRASH PARTY 2014, Identity Porn, Interrogation, Irredeemable Garbage Porn, Knifeplay, M/M, Object Insertion, Rape, The Author Regrets Everything, Torture, memory recovery, not safe for life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2014-06-09
Packaged: 2018-02-04 00:53:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1761151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenlittlebullets/pseuds/shinelikethunder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pierce's motives for bringing the Winter Soldier in to interrogate Captain Rogers are more than a little bit suspect.</p><p>Follows directly on <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1744616">Elevator, Take 2</a>, but literally the only thing you need to know about that one is "the one where the elevator beatdown ends in a gangbang instead." Just like the only thing you need to know about this one is "all the filthy trash Cap/Winter Soldier noncon you didn't know you wanted."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Simple Excuse for a Complex Crime

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Простая причина сложного преступления](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7318276) by [Tressa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tressa/pseuds/Tressa)



> Inspiration drawn shamelessly from [this gorgeous piece of fanart by stereowire](http://stereowire.tumblr.com/post/77263120161/and-maybe-im-too-blind-to-see-the-line-was).

The Winter Soldier stares blankly at Rumlow. "An interrogation?"

"That's what the boss-man said. C'mon."

He doesn't repeat the question, just follows Rumlow out to the parking garage and into a car with tinted windows and two more handlers waiting for him inside. Still, he is puzzled. The Winter Soldier is an assassin, not a torturer. He specializes in dealing death as quickly and silently as possible. The fine art of making a man wish he were dead without ever striking the mortal blow is not part of his arsenal; persuasion, manipulation, knowing exactly where to chip away at a target's psyche, are as foreign to him as the sculptor's craft is to a statue. Even his own psyche is foreign to him most of the time. He suspects it's easier that way.

Still, if there is one thing the Winter Soldier excels at, it's following orders.

Another parking garage, another set of corridors, a trip downwards in a biometrically-secured elevator deep in the bowels of the building. He passes one of his guns off to a handler--he won't need it--and exchanges it for an extra set of knives. Rumlow hands him an object that looks a little bit like a baton but doesn't have enough weight to it. "Stun stick," he says. "Fun little toy."

Without breaking stride, the Winter Soldier tests it out on his own right thigh, one of the few parts of him that isn't under body armor. It produces a satisfactory burst of pain that isn't disabling beyond turning his leg numb for a few moments. On a normal human the effects will be more severe but still non-lethal. He nods to Rumlow, holds a hand out for the holster, and straps it around his waist.

Pierce is waiting for them at the cell. "There you are," he says with a genial smile, ushering them into the antechamber. "No trouble on the way over?"

The Winter Soldier stands in silence. Pierce is a politician; small talk is part of his skill set. He knows very well that his prize asset has a very different skill set, and doesn't miss a beat when he gets no response. "We've captured the man who was pursuing you last night. He was with the target when you eliminated him, and I've got reason to believe the target passed some valuable information to him before he died. I need you to find out what he knows and who else he's told."

"Why me?"

Pierce looks annoyed at being questioned, but he answers all the same. "Let's just say I've got reason to believe you'll make an impact on him," he says. "I know it's not your usual line of work, but it's not complicated. Keep hurting him until he talks. The team who brought him in already softened him up for you. He's just had a dozen guys make him their bitch, he should be a wreck already."

The Winter Soldier has forgotten most of the slang he doesn't need on missions, but he has no need to ask what 'making him their bitch' means. It's a phrase he's heard often enough, though always in reference to the pleasure of the men doing it, his own like or dislike of the activity being utterly irrelevant. The idea that it could be strategically used to render an ordinary man 'a wreck' is curious to him. "Is that a valid interrogation technique?" he asks.

"Hm?" Pierce gives a start, and pauses in confusion for a moment. Then he looks straight at the Winter Soldier and his eyes crinkle up in a smile. "You know what, why not? Give it a try if you want to. Just one thing, though..."

The Winter Soldier waits patiently.

"Make sure he enjoys it." 

Inside the cell are three men. One of them, blond, well-muscled, heavily restrained, wearing the tattered remains of a dark blue combat suit--the man who followed the Winter Soldier last night--is curled up on the floor, and the other two are kicking him. More softening-up, evidently. The man on the floor doesn't look very softened; on entering the room, the Winter Soldier grabs one of the assailants by the collar of his t-shirt and hauls him back just in time to get him clear of a kick that would've cracked his shin.

"Leave," the Winter Soldier says flatly, and both of them cut and run without waiting to be told twice.

There's a cot in the corner, bolted to the floor. He sits down and examines the captive before doing anything else. From this angle the man's back is to him, and the ripped-open combat suit exposes a great deal of flesh, mottled with bruises that are already going greenish-yellow in places as though they've been there for a week. Interesting. It's probable, of course, that this simply isn't the first fight this man's been in recently, but the absence of fresh bruising raises the possibility that he heals even faster than the Winter Soldier. The cuffs securing his arms behind his back are massive. A dull smear of blood between his buttocks confirms what Pierce told him about his prior treatment.

The captive spits blood on the floor and, without moving the rest of his body, turns his head to get a look at the newcomer. His eyes widen. "You," he whispers hoarsely.

The Winter Soldier is already thinking about what his knives could do to all that flesh.

"You killed Nick Fury."

Nick Fury. He hadn't known the target's name. Sometimes he did, when he had to research them to track them down, but this job had been engineered by a large team working separately from his usual handlers. He was just the failsafe in case the target proved difficult to kill.

"What are you doing here?" asks the man on the floor. "Did they capture you too?"

The Winter Soldier narrows his eyes. It occurs to him that this man knows him only as a lone assassin, and that he could try to trick him into revealing information by pretending to be a fellow prisoner, apprehended for the murder of this Nick Fury. But his cunning is all battle-cunning, and he has no grasp of the manipulation that might let him turn such a charade to his advantage. _Keep hurting him until he talks._ He draws one of his knives, idly flipping it in the air, backhand to forward and back again. "You were with him when he died," he says, enunciating clearly through his face mask so he won't have to repeat himself. "He told you something. You're going to tell me what it is, and who else you spoke to about it."

The man sighs and sets his jaw determinedly. "No, I'm not."

The Winter Soldier lunges, gets two knees to the solar plexus that hurt even through the thick leather and padding, and remembers too late that this man is _fast_ as well as strong. He vows not to repeat that mistake. There's a brief tussle on the floor, and he holds back just enough to let the man end up with his back up against the edge of the cot, gripping the bedframe for leverage as he brings his knees up to his chest for a powerful kick. Then the Winter Soldier uses his metal arm to drive a knife through the captive's hand and right through the bedframe, pinning him in place.

He waits until the howl of agony has subsided into strangled groans, and says, "Let me know when you change your mind." 

Around his choked noises of pain, the captive articulates a single word: “ _No._ ”

The Winter Soldier sits back down on the edge of the cot, one boot resting on the man's legs to keep him from thrashing, one hand keeping the knife in place. He shoves the man's shoulder so he's lying half-facedown, half on his side, and ponders the expanse of canvas in front of him. He could just leave an indiscriminate mass of cuts all over that bare back, of course. Or he could give this man something to remember him by. At that thought, something long dormant stirs within him, and he has the strange fleeting feeling that _he's_ the one who is failing to remember something, something vital, right on the tip of his tongue. The feeling passes as quickly as it came, but it leaves an image in its wake.

He flips out another knife and begins to cut. Ten cuts, deep and perfectly straight. It was the silver star on that ragged uniform that gave him the idea, but he likes it more and more as he goes. There was a star like that on the shield the man had flung at him, too. But it's the star on his own metal arm that makes him carve into the flesh with such relish—after all, only one of the three is red.

His victim has stopped crying out, but while the knife is working a low whine emerges from between his gritted teeth, rising and falling with his heaving breath. When the Winter Soldier pulls away to inspect his handiwork, the whine fades away but the breaths stay just as ragged, and he notices that the man is gripping the bedframe white-knuckled, despite the pain it must be causing in the hand that's still impaled. He rattles that knife back and forth just to hear the man's gasp and muffled curse.

“Why are you doing this?” the captive chokes out.

 _Keep hurting him until he talks._ The Winter Soldier doesn't answer. He traces over the cuts, now bleeding freely, with the first finger of his left hand, smearing fresh bright red all over the metal. He looks between the man's legs, at the filthy dark-red bloodstains mingled with drying come, and thinks about Pierce's suggestion. Slowly, he reaches down and draws his finger along that cleft. Fresh bright red on top of the dull dried bloodstains. The noise the man makes is indescribable.

“Oh Christ, not that,” he says, his voice more forceful now, the words more distinct. “Not you too. I thought you were gonna be more creative than the others.”

Something in his voice gives the Winter Soldier pause, and he has to fight back a ludicrous twinge of embarrassment before he reminds himself that he's not here to be creative. No, not embarrassment—shame. Why is he ashamed at the disappointment in this man's voice, even when it's clearly bluster? It goes against everything he is trained to be. True, he can't help the glimmer of respect he feels for the man and his bravery. But he is the Winter Soldier. The only disappointment he need ever be ashamed of is his superiors' if he fails a mission, and he does not fail. Ever. His lips curl into a snarl behind his mask, and he forces his finger inside.

Most of the HYDRA agents who have discovered that the Winter Soldier's obedience can be turned to sexual ends pay no attention to his enjoyment, except to deny him release--a form of discipline that does not trouble him, accustomed as he is to indifference towards his own body--or demand that he put on an exaggerated show for them. But a long time ago, back in the Soviet days, there was a woman attached to the scientific team who had taken an almost academic interest in how to wring the maximum amount of pleasure from her subject's body, with or without his cooperation. Time passes both quicker and slower for the Winter Soldier than it does for the rest of the world, and he cannot remember the woman's face. But his sense-memories are sufficiently intact that he knows what techniques to employ to fulfil the final part of Pierce's orders. _Make him enjoy it._

It's not easy. The men who went before him have inflicted enough injury that even the insertion of one finger clearly causes pain. And the captive is tensed up against him and resisting every step of the way. Still, the difficulty only increases the Winter Soldier's satisfaction when he locates the correct place to probe with his finger to elicit a choked-off gasp and a twitch of the man's flaccid penis. He repeats the gesture more firmly, with his thumb jammed up against the tender spot behind the subject's testicles, and is rewarded with a quickly-stifled sob as the man's body betrays him.

The Winter Soldier's body is a tool that does not belong to him; even the idea that sexual use could be wielded as a form of cruelty hadn't occurred to him until Pierce had mentioned it, so the idea of pleasure as a weapon, of compounding the target's distress by making them enjoy their own violation, hadn't even been comprehensible to him when he began to carry out the order. Now, though, he can appreciate his superior's genius. It is devastatingly effective. The sob was a one-time loss of control and doesn't happen again, but the more erect the captive gets, the more frantically he fidgets and darts his glance around the room, seeking an escape route. He is an animal trapped in his own skin.

The Winter Soldier shifts off the cot to kneel straddling the man's legs, partly to control his fitful, anxious kicking, partly for a more convenient range of motion. He begins to slide his finger in and out and finds that it glides easily—unsurprising, given how many men have probably ejaculated inside him already. The captive turns his head to stare at the Winter Soldier with something very much like hatred in his eyes. It's not the first time one of his victims has looked at him like that, but it is the first time it's made him feel the need to drop his own gaze and concentrate on his work. He wraps his flesh hand around the man's erection and gives it a few loose pulls, which earns him a muffled curse and a deep shudder that wracks the man's whole body.

In retrospect, both avoiding the captive's eyes and letting go of the knife to jerk him off were enormous blunders. He has underestimated this man yet again; he must have been waiting for his chance the whole time. With an almighty effort and a roar of pain, he wrenches his hands free of the bedframe and swings them at the Winter Soldier's face. The Winter Soldier sees the blade of his own knife coming towards him, emerging from _through_ the man's palm, and looks up just in time for the knife to slam harmlessly against his face mask and clatter to the floor instead of stabbing him through the eye. But now the man's grabbing him by the face. The Winter Soldier lets go of the man's erection and darts his right hand up to subdue him, but it's too late.

The mask goes skittering across the floor to the opposite corner of the cell.

The captive stares over his shoulder at the Winter Soldier, all the hatred on his face replaced by open, wide-eyed shock. He stops struggling and collapses limply to the floor. “Bucky?” he whispers.

The Winter Soldier's got no idea who that is or why the apparent sight of him has sapped this man's will to fight. He drives his finger in deeper. “Who the hell is Bucky?” he growls.

“Bucky, stop. Think about this. You don't want to do this. I don't know how you survived, I don't know what they did to you, but this—this isn't you. They did something to your head, and you've got to snap out of it. 'Cause if you—the real you—if you could see yourself right now, you'd deck me across the face for letting it get this far.”

“Shut _up_!” the Winter Soldier snarls. He yanks the stun baton out of its holster and brings it down hard on the meat of the prisoner's upper back, where the outline of a star is still bleeding. 

The man jerks and twitches but keeps going. “Bucky, it's me. It's Steve. Steve Rogers. We've been best friends our whole lives. C'mon, Bucky, don't do this. We've gotta get out of here.”

The Winter Soldier pulls his finger out and grabs Steve Rogers—there's no reason to believe that's not his name—by the hair with his metal hand. “I am not your friend,” he snarls. “Would your friend do this?” He pushes the stun stick between Rogers' legs, where his finger had been, and forcibly turns the man's head around to look.

Rogers goes very still, whether it's from the crude threat or the awareness that the Winter Soldier is within inches of snapping his neck. But his voice stays steady. “You might not know it right now, but yeah, you are. And whether or not you know it, I'm still _your_ friend, which means it's my job to look out for your stupid ass. So stop and think. They know who I am, they have to know who you are. SHIELD's got trained interrogators on hand, but they sent you in to torture me, knowing it might compromise what they did to your head. And they've got big plans coming up. Whatever they were using you for, they don't need you anymore. You're expendable to them, Buck.”

“I said _shut up_!” His heart rate is up. He realizes he's ferociously angry, but he's not sure at whom. Steve Rogers is the closest target to hand, though, so he stands up and drags Rogers to his knees by the hair. Pierce's answer to his impertinent question comes back to him: _I've got reason to believe you'll make an impact on him._ The nagging feeling that there's something he's forgotten returns in full force, and he feels dizzy, unstable, like the time a stakeout stretched out for three days and he didn't know why he was getting so careless and confused until he was back at headquarters and a technician asked, _Has he eaten anything this whole time?_ But even if he used to be called Bucky once and he's forgotten, he's still the Winter Soldier and he's still got a mission, and he knows a way to make Steve Rogers shut the hell up that's well within his mission parameters. He holsters the stun baton and unfastens his fly.

Rogers blanches when the Winter Soldier comes around to stand in front of him, metal hand still curled into a fist in his hair. “Bucky, no—”

The Winter Soldier reaches down to the cot with his free hand and retrieves the bloodstained knife he'd used on Rogers' back. He holds it to his throat and says, “Yes.”

He is gambling on the fact that Rogers has stopped fighting back ever since the mask came off, and on the assumption that he loves his friend too much to inflict a gruesome injury with his teeth just to avoid some humiliation. He is also gambling on his own poker face, because he's reeling so hard that he doesn't think he could bring himself to kill Rogers for refusing this, but he's given no outward sign of hesitation. He's hoping that the knife hovering over Rogers' carotid artery is a persuasive argument.

If Rogers realizes he's bluffing, he doesn't call him on it. Instead, with a look of abject misery on his face, he leans forward to take the Winter Soldier in his mouth.

Rogers' mouth is good. Slick and hot, even if he's just kneeling there with his jaw slack and not doing much to help this along. The pleasure is uncomplicated. It affords him some valuable time to stop and think.

He's not supposed to _think._

He's definitely not supposed to think about whether there was a person who was him before the endless rounds of cryo and the memory wipes that never seem to fully take. He'd always assumed it had been going on his whole life, or that at some point he'd agreed to this. That one of the things he couldn't remember was accepting the honor of being molded into an exquisite killing machine. Stood to reason, right? The thought that there could be a life cut short somewhere in his past, strangers who know his face, people who are _devoted_ to him—and there's no question that Steve Rogers is devoted to this Bucky—it's uncomfortable. It's messy, is what it is. Inelegant. 

Okay, so he knows the name of the poor schmuck who was sacrificed to create the Winter Soldier. What does that change? Seriously, what the hell is he supposed to do about it? He's not the person Steve Rogers thinks he is. Brushing up against the ghost of his past self is destabilizing his programming, but it's not gonna undo the person he is now, and why would he even want that to happen? He sleeps, he wakes up, he changes history, he does what his handlers and techs determine he has to do to remain one of the top assassins in the world, he goes back to sleep. It's not a bad life. Rogers would hate it, but Rogers is sitting there crying—okay, cheap shot, maybe his eyes are just watering—over having to give one unwanted blowjob. His possessiveness over his own body is a liability the Winter Soldier discarded long ago, if his past self ever had it. Why would he want it back? Why give up what he has just for one person's devotion?

There's a flash of movement in his peripheral vision. He looks up and sees a square of light appear in the window of one-way glass between the cell and the antechamber. Pierce has opened the door to the hallway and stands there in profile, silhouetted against the light from outside, ushering in a gaggle of people the Winter Soldier can't recognize with the light at their backs. One of them stops in the doorway to chat. Pierce throws his head back, the way he sometimes does when he laughs, and pours the man a drink. The square of light disappears.

They're here to watch the interrogation. Drinks going around mean it's a social occasion— _like they're goin' to the goddamn pictures,_ a sullen, ferocious voice in the back of his head interjects. He doesn't want to believe what Rogers said, about how this isn't even about the intel, about how they're confronting him with someone from his past for their own entertainment, about how they can risk compromising him (and he feels compromised all right) because they've decided he's expendable. But the whole thing smells rotten. It's not his place to decide it smells rotten, that's just another way of saying there's information they haven't deemed necessary for him to know, which is perfectly routine. But it smells rotten all the same.

There's always the possibility that Rogers is lying. It'd definitely be in his self-interest to get the interrogator on his side. Funny, convoluted way to go about it though. Or maybe it's a test. They've discovered some flaw, some vulnerability in his programming and they're trying to see if it can be exploited. Makes sense. After all, Rogers is messing with his head something fierce, but there's no evidence to back up his claims, or even a glimmer of recognition at the sight of his face. Granted, the Winter Soldier has been spending most of his time staring at Rogers' back, but it's not as though...

He makes the mistake of looking down. Rogers is staring up at him. Probably has been for some time, kneeling there watching the Winter Soldier's face as he lets him fuck his mouth. It's hard to say whether he's actually crying or whether his exertions are just making his eyes water, but the look on his face is worse than tears. It's... grief, and betrayal, and this awful hopeless frustration like he's reaching out his hand for something he'll never be able to grasp, and where the _hell_ did that image come from? You can't read that into someone's expression just from looking at them. The Winter Soldier closes his eyes, head spinning, and then he's falling. Falling and falling and reaching out and never grasping anything, and then cold air hits his dick and his back hits the wall and Steve Rogers' voice is saying “Bucky?” from a long way away.

When he remembers where he is and how to make his voice work, he finds himself saying, “Just give me the information, Steve. Tell me what I was sent here to find out, and this will all be over.” He's lost his hard-on. He probably won't be able to get it back up.

“Yeah, and what then?” Rogers' voice is pitched low and urgent. “You go back to wherever they keep you when they don't need you, I rot here waiting for the firing squad, and neither of us gets a decent night's sleep until the day they decide to put us down like stray dogs. To hell with that. You know this part of the building, I know the surrounding area, you've got enough firepower for both of us, we can escape. You and me, Buck, just like old times. We've gotten out of worse places than this.”

He hits Rogers across the face with his metal arm. Then he leans in real close and hisses, “They're watching. They might be listening. Even if I wanted in on your crazy plan—which I _don't_ —talking about it here is a real dumb move.”

“Where else are we going to get the chance? Bucky...”

“ _I'm not Bucky._ ” The Winter Soldier flings him to the ground in a rage and gets the stun stick back out. He jabs it into the hollow of Rogers' throat. “Now. Three options. I throw you over that bed and fuck you. I get to work on your kneecaps. Or you tell me what Nick Fury told you before he died. I'm on a mission, and any of those would count as completing it. Your choice.”

Rogers gazes up at him with a pleading look on his face, but the Winter Soldier is pitiless. After a lot of squirming and a few “c'mon, Bucky...”s, he screws his eyes shut and mutters, “Guess my butt's already taken all the damage it's going to take. Can't believe I'm signing up for more of this, but option one it is.”

It's the answer the Winter Soldier has been both dreading and hoping for. Hoping for, because there is a scrap of an idea germinating in the back of his mind, and it will go off a lot easier if Rogers can walk. Dreading, because he doesn't know if he can go through with it. He drags Rogers to his knees, shoves him forward so he's bent over the cot, and tries to stroke himself back to full hardness. No go. Rogers has got one hell of a nice body; some animalistic part of him that his programming can control but not eliminate had recognized that from the start. But every time he tries to think about that, the image of Rogers staring up at him with his mouth open around the Winter Soldier's cock and desperate grief contorting his features springs unbidden to his mind. Not only is it the opposite of a turn-on, he's got the feeling that thinking about it for too long will bring on another inconvenient flashback. He wonders with vague irritation what other people think about to get themselves off.

He tucks himself back into his pants with a noise of disgust and considers his options. He can always fall back on option two, plain old torture, and try to find something that isn't too disabling but is impressive enough to convince Pierce that Rogers isn't going to talk. Or—there's more than one way to violate somebody. He rests a hand on the small of Rogers' back, right above his tailbone, and says, “Don't move.” Lays the stun baton horizontally over the backs of his legs, right at the crease where thigh meets buttock, and gives him a good solid jolt. Rogers twitches violently and bites back a cry of pain. He does it again, and Rogers abandons whatever's left of his pride and sinks his teeth into the thin blanket to keep from screaming. A third time, sliding it over so the tip of the baton digs into his perineum, and the scream tears its way out of his throat anyway. Pierce had better be watching this little display.

The Winter Soldier pushes the tip of the stun stick inside him, and Rogers goes very, very still. His breathing is fast and shallow, his eyes are wide with fear. This isn't what he signed up for, and for all he knows the Winter Soldier is about to see whether his body can withstand a shock from the inside. Good. It's all very, very believable. The spectators on the other side of the mirror glass are getting a hell of a show. He starts sliding the baton in and out, fucking him on it, and angles it to inflict more unwanted pleasure. It's a skill he learned from the best, and with a little help from his other hand, soon he's got Rogers flinching in utter horror as he stiffens in the Winter Soldier's grip. 

“Tell me when you're close,” he hisses as quietly as he can, hoping to hell that their audience either isn't listening or doesn't have equipment sensitive enough to pick up the words over Rogers' strangled groans.

He doesn't know what he was expecting, but he definitely wasn't expecting Rogers to breathe out an almost imperceptible “Okay” and relax under him. The stupid bastard _trusts_ him. Enough to let go and give himself over at the first indication that the Winter Soldier's got a plan, even with a glorified cattle prod shoved up against his innards. What the hell is wrong with him, and what the hell did this Bucky ever do to deserve that? The Winter Soldier is torn between the temptation to push the button and let him reap the reward of his idiocy, and the return of that absurd horror of letting Steve Rogers down. Horror wins out. He keeps fucking him, trying to make it look a lot more vicious than it really is, and alternates it with jerking him off, but doesn't do anything worse. He keeps his left hand on the small of his back to pin him down, right below where his hands are cuffed behind him, and Rogers grabs his metal wrist with both hands. One of them is still bleeding where the Winter Soldier put a knife through it, and the red smear on the metal matches the fresh bloodstains on the stun stick. The gesture probably looks like a last-ditch struggle or plea, but the Winter Soldier is pretty sure he knows what it really is. Clinging. After everything he's just been through, Steve Rogers is holding on to him—to _him_ —for support. 

It takes a surprisingly short amount of time before Rogers tenses and whispers, “Now.” The Winter Soldier doesn't hesitate. He lets the stun baton slip out, trying not to make it obvious to their observers that that's what he's doing, shoves it back up against Rogers' perineum, and pushes the button. The scream is blood-curdling. Afterwards the silence, broken only by Rogers' sobbing gasps and the splattering of his come on the concrete floor, is eerily loud. The Winter Soldier almost feels guilty, but it was a shock he knew Rogers could take, and this had to look realistic. Besides, if he's capable of guilt he should save it up for what he's about to do.

“I'm giving you one more chance,” he says, his voice as flat as it was when he came in and kicked the guards out. “Tell me about Fury. Tell me who else you've told.”

“Like hell,” Rogers spits.

“Your funeral.” He holsters the stun baton, retrieves the two knives he used, and finds the mask on the floor in the opposite corner. He is stabilizing. When he puts the mask on he feels almost like the dead-eyed killer he was when he first walked into this room. Except now, he has a sense of purpose that has nothing to do with his mission. He doesn't look back to see Rogers' reaction.

When he emerges into the antechamber everyone but Pierce takes a step back. “Mission report,” Pierce says calmly.

“You saw the measures I employed. He didn't talk.”

“Did he... have anything else to say to you?”

There's a titter in the back of the room.

“He claimed to recognize me,” the Winter Soldier says dully, without the slightest sign of interest. “He thought I was someone named Bucky. He said I knew him.”

“And do you?”

“No,” the Winter Soldier lies.

“Not at all? No reaction to what he said to you?”

“It disturbed me,” he says dispassionately. Behind his dead eyes, he is watching Pierce with the attention of a predator. Even if Steve Rogers is real, this could all still be a test. “It indicates a gap in my programming that could be vulnerable to exploitation.”

There are more titters from the back. Pierce smiles a smile of genuine pleasure bordering on smugness, without a trace of concern for the liability that's been pointed out to him. They weren't testing their weapon's capabilities. In all likelihood they don't care about their weapon's capabilities. They jeopardized their control over his mind—and lost it—for the pure spectacle of watching him rape and torture his former self's best friend. His mind is made up, not so much through outrage as through disgust at the pointless waste, even before Pierce says, “Don't worry about it, we'll have him taken care of.”

“A request.”

It's the second time today he's caught gone off script and caught Pierce by surprise. He figures that after what they just had him do, they won't be too suspicious if he's not quite himself. “Yes?” says Pierce.

“As I said, it disturbed me. If that man is to be eliminated, it would settle my mind if I could be the one to carry it out.”

Pierce actually laughs. “You want to blow his brains out yourself?”

“Yes.”

“What the hell. Granted. Nicole, get us another bottle of champagne.”

-

They're unceremonious about it. At first Pierce wants him to go right back in and put a bullet between Rogers' eyes while the rest of them watch. But the Winter Soldier fixes him with a stare so cold-blooded that even Pierce takes a step back, and says, “No. This is an execution, not an assassination. Send a firing squad with me if you think I need backup, but I'm doing this outside and burying him where he falls.”

A couple people present look ready to protest, but Pierce holds up a placating hand. “Let him have what he wants,” he says, in a tone so patronizing that it only cements the Winter Soldier's conviction that they're going to dispose of him soon. “Tomorrow we'll be the ones laying the past to rest. It's only right to do it with dignity.” He raises his glass to the Winter Soldier, who doesn't acknowledge it beyond a poisonous stare. “Get a team together,” he says to Rumlow, “take him down to the yard behind the loading dock on the Virginia side. You wanna wait till dawn?” he asks the Winter Soldier. “That's the traditional way.”

The Winter Soldier gives a fractional shake of his head.

The team are all picked out from among his handlers. They're solid, dependable men. They've helped make the Winter Soldier what he is today. He gets them to arm him to the teeth with extra guns and ammo “just in case.”

Rogers doesn't understand at first. It's not until they're marching him down the corridor and into the elevator that he asks what's going on.

“You won't have to rot in your cell waiting for that firing squad,” the Winter Soldier says, and looks straight ahead so he doesn't have to see the betrayal on Rogers' face.

The 'yard' is below water level, all damp asphalt and high walls, the ugly functional underside lurking behind every shiny corporate headquarters. Whatever they unload here must come in by boat, and sure enough there's a rope cleated off on top of the wall that turns out to belong to a dinghy packed with a bunch of identical, really suspicious-looking briefcases. Who knows what SHIELD is getting up to with those; the crew loading them into the dinghy turn tail and flee when they see them. It's only after they've gone that Rogers starts in on him. “Bucky,” he says, “don't do this—”

“Are you going to put up a fight?” the Winter Soldier asks coolly.

Rogers deflates, though to his credit he doesn't look like he's about to cry. Shoulda guessed the stupid asshole would march to his death with dignity, even under the worst possible circumstances. Always too brave for his own good. “No. I'm not going to fight you. I'm with you, Buck, with you to the end of the line, even if you're the one who's—”

“Good, 'cause I don't want you compounding your stupid by getting yourself hurt.” He raises his assault rifle and shoots the rest of their escort, five shots in quick succession before any of them have time to do so much as turn around. One of them is wounded, not dead. Sloppy. He shoots him in the back of the head, execution-style, and turns back to Rogers. “Shut your gob and get moving, we're stealing ourselves a boat.”

-

_Post-credits scene #1:_

“So, uh, about. What happened. I'm sorry. I'm real sorry. We'll talk, okay? I was...”

“I think we can shelve that discussion for when we don't have a Coast Guard patrol to avoid and a shadowy government conspiracy to bring down!”

“Yeah, well, you know what I think?” says Bucky. “I think you got me confused with someone who gives a damn what you think. Don't you tell me when's a good time to apologize, I'm sorry as hell.”

Steve groans and guns the motor. “Why did the first thing you remember have to be that you're a jerk?”

-

_Post-credits scene #2:_

They get to the hospital to retrieve the USB stick. Introductions are in order. “You had a heart to heart with the guy sent in to torture you and he busted you out instead?” Natasha says. There's bubble gum all over her face, which is the closest Steve's ever come to seeing her at a loss. “You know, I should really, really be more surprised than I am.”

“Hang on,” says Bucky, “I think I shot you.”


End file.
